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PUBLIC SERVICE: JOHN LITTLE'S UK BASED GRASS ROOF CO.






This week on Cultivating Place, host Ben Futa is in conversation with John Little, an ecological designer and public horticulture advocate living and working in the UK. His firm, the Grass Roof Company, launched in 1998. Ever since, they have been expanding and broadening ideas around public plantings, habitat, and those who care for them.


John's not-for-profit, Care, Not Capital, is training the next generation of public gardeners with the skills they need to fully serve and support the public through their growing work.


His early work centered creating habitat gardens and outdoor classrooms connected with schools, and has since expanded to include a wide range of horticultural and habitat interventions throughout everyday life: from green roofs over bus stops to living covers for rubbish bins.


Enjoy!



Follow John online:

and on Instagram:


All Photos courtesy of Green Roof Co & Filbert Press, photos by Izzy de Wottripont. All rights reserved.


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JOIN US again next week, where spring is stirring, buds are swelling, and soil is warming. Jennifer celebrates the joys of healthy living soil in conversation with Omar Al Shafie, co-founder of Northern California-based Teregen Ag, a purpose-driven soil and plant nutrient producer and researcher dedicated to furthering our collective transition toward sustainable, regenerative farming by making the best plant and soil amendments better and accessible to everyone. Having witnessed firsthand how healthy soil can transform not just crops, but entire ecosystems and communities, and in understanding the challenges of shifting away from conventional methods, Teregen focuses on researching and producing nutrient-dense amendments that help rebuild soil biology and support plant health. Their goal is to help transform our entire food system, one farm and garden at a time. That's right here, next week. Listen in!


Cultivating Place is made possible in part by listeners like you and by generous support

from

in honor of Bailey Shaw


supporting initiatives that empower women and help preserve the planet through the intersection of environmental advocacy, social justice, and creativity.






Thinking out loud this week...


Hey, it's Ben—


John believes we can channel our love of plants as a tool to change places for people and for other wildlife, seeing green space as key in making places livable and good.


To me, it feels like our world and our culture is at an inflection point: a

tumultuous state of becoming. Together, we stand on the threshold of a

different and better future, and us Gardeners with a capital G are driving

some of the most exciting and transformational change within our

communities. This change is grounded in hope, connection, biodiversity,

and resiliency.


Investing in the places we call home is a powerful act and also a

statement about the type of community we want to live in. If our

conversation today inspired you, and if you’ve been thinking about how

you can step in and take a more active role in making change where you

live, I’m excited to share that on Tuesday, March 31, I’ll again be teaming up with Ben Vogt, Ben O’Brien, and Lindsey Spaulding for the next cohort of our “Growing a Natural Garden Design Business”. This half-day virtual offering + extensive manual of supporting materials is meant to empower anyone who’s ready to make a change toward cultivating the ecology right outside your door. Registration is now open at now!


I hope today’s conversation inspired you to think about all the ways in

which you can add layers, depth, and diversity into your growing place. I

hope it energizes you to re-examine, re-consider, and re-frame how you

define growing success in your place. I hope it’s inspired your curiosity

and fueled your hope.


I hope it makes you want to grow more plants in more places.


I want to reflect a bit more on the idea of solitude versus loneliness. You’ve likely heard that we’re live in an age of a “loneliness epidemic” fueled in many ways by a rapidly evolving technological and social media landscape.


Believe it or not, I’m a deep introvert. I recharge my batteries by spending time alone, often in some sort of creative or hands-on hobby: gardening, cooking, sowing seeds. Not only do a crave solitude, it’s a necessity: a non-negotiable, and something I continue to feel like I need to protect and make room for in a world and a business that increasingly asks me to be “on” all while balancing the necessity and calling of building community. It’s an odd dynamic some days, and one I’m still learning how to navigate.


Learning when and how to plug in while also conserving and protecting my energy feels like one of the bigger challenges heading in to 2026. I’m encouraged to witness what feels like a strong movement brewing among others, too – a drive to reclaim analog activities. Not to go off- grid per say, just maybe not so plugged in. Re-learning practical skills in-person and in community (not via YouTube or a reel), creating goods slowly, in small batches, intentionally, and by-hand, and – of course - spending as much time with plants as possible. Somehow, it never feels like enough. Lately, I’ve been longing for the days before email and screen time and algorithms: days of solitude, calm, and comfort, connection and community.


As John and I continue our conversation, we’re talking about doing work with meaning, where work = joy, and how we can empower more people to connect with more plants in more places through that work. In this, I’m reminded again that often the work we do to heal ourselves is also the work the world needs and calls upon us to do, too.


What does that work look like to you, in your place?


My conversation with John is lighting up so many neurons: the notion of using every bit of material from our gardens, in our gardens, with nothing leaving the site. Building habitat in-place, and making that habitat appealing to all – wildlife and human alike.


And, perhaps you’ve also been picking up on a theme in some of my recent Cultivating Place conversations these past few months as we’ve been exploring, broadening, and deepening the definition of public horticulture. From chatting with Joseph Reiver of the Elizabeth Street Garden in February of 2025 to Rebecca McMackin and her re-wilding work that spans New York City and front lawns everywhere in November, to last month’s conversation with Tanja Hollander, an artist and community organizer working to grow a public garden of remembrance and healing: all of them, grounded in community.


All of these people, in so many different ways, are expanding how we collectively think about and approach growing gardens in public spaces and the impact those spaces have on the communities where they grow. And, I know they aren’t alone – I know many of you listening are engaged in similar work.


Over the past few weeks, Jennifer and I have been chatting about this, and while it’s a bit too soon to share all the details with you, I do hope you’ll save these dates: September 25-26. We’re in the early stages of planning an in-person convening so that all of us working in this “new” realm of public horticulture might have an opportunity to build our own community of practitioners, growers, and cultivators who are breaking down walls, planting in unconventional places, and building community based in soil, plants, and connection.


You’ll be hearing more about this gathering over the next few months, and I can’t WAIT to share more with you. Soon…


Save the dates: September 25 & 26.

WAYS TO SUPPORT CULTIVATING PLACE

Cultivating Place is a co-production of North State Public Radio, licensed to Chico State Enterprises. Cultivating Place is made possible in part listeners just like you through the support button at the top right-hand corner of every page at Cultivating Place.org


The CP team includes producer and engineer Matt Fidler, with weekly tech and web support from Angel Huracha, weekly communications support by Sheila Stern and Carley Bruckner, and regular hosting by Founder, Jennifer Jewell, as well as Abra Lee in Atlanta, Georgia, and Ben Futa in South Bend, Indiana. We’re based on the traditional and present homelands of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of the Chico Rancheria. Original theme music is by Ma Muse..


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